Lakewood City Council and Staff Silently Protest Inclusion of Outside Data

*Correction 4/14/23: Councilor Able attended the full meeting, including data from Councilor Olver

The March 20, 2023 Lakewood City Council meeting was to study multi-modal transportation; specifically bike lanes. The session included a presentation by staff for Council consideration. Council Member Rich Olver, an experienced biker, brought additional data in the form of pictures of specific bike lane hazards. Rather than “study” this data that was “outside of our norm”, multiple members of City Council and the City Manager appeared to leave the meeting in silent protest.

Summary of the meeting

The presentation by staff included an overview of the advantages of biking, biking lanes, and options for bike lane creation. According to Max E. Kirschbaum, Director of Public Works, the challenges that Lakewood faces include “Retrofitting an existing street can often require widening.”

Depending on the treatment, a bike lane could cost $500,000 per mile. The next step for this project would be to identify priorities and establish a budget. Several corridors are considered ready for “quick action”, such as existing bike lanes that just need vertical separation, or roads that are wide enough.

Following the presentation, Council Members had requests to prioritize their wards, requests to look into grant money and mention of some challenges to bike lanes. Discussion was limited to these individual comments.

Silent Protest

Council Member Olver prepared some slides to show specific problems in Lakewood at the end of the meeting. However, Mayor Paul advised the Council that it is “outside of our norm” for Councilors to present data, therefore he advised that Council did not have to stay for Olver’s data. In fact, Mayor Paul cut his video as soon as Olver started talking.

Other Councilors followed suit. Councilors Shahrezaei, Mayott-Guerrero, Stewart, Vincent, Mayor Paul and City Manager Hodgson all cut their video, seeming to leave the meeting rather than listen to data presented by a fellow Council Member. Olver provided visual data of bike problems in the city (see below). In fact, most of the problems were in Wards 1 and 3 (Olver is Councilor for Ward 4), but Councilors Shahrezaei and Stewart appeared to leave. Councilors Able and Janssen stayed for the entire meeting (Paragraph corrected to show all specific names 4/14/23).

This silent protest of Council Members seems to suggest that only data prepared by staff is suitable for consideration, which is at odds with the idea of a study session.

Olver’s data showed that connectivity is a bigger issue for those currently using bike lanes, rather than vertical separation on existing lanes. He showed several easy fixes for dangerous spots and his data was specific to Lakewood, rather than the general overview that was involved in the staff presentation, that had a different focus.

Even without Olver’s data, it would be appropriate in a study session to discuss specific problems such as whether to prioritize vertical separation or connectivity. That discussion did not happen. All details will be left to city staff to decide.